Posts and ramblings of Aquarium-loving South African Asatruar/Heathen Karl Andresson. Will post anything that may tickle my fancy. Original posts as well as many reblogs. All media belong to their respective owners – unless stated otherwise, and will be removed if the owners show any objections as to the use of their property.

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Durban – Charities could face ruin over a government proposal that firms could lose black economic empowerment (BEE) points if they donate to charities that do not have 100 percent black beneficiaries.

Some charities believe the proposal means that any firm that donates to a charity that helps a white, coloured or Indian person may not be able to claim points for its BEE scorecard.

It could also mean that if just one white child or person is among a group of black people the charity is helping, the firm that donates to it could lose it points.

A BEE scorecard is used by the government to measure a company’s BEE compliance. Those that comply do business more easily with other companies also wanting to increase their scorecard and are favoured by the government in all aspects relating to business.

Many say that the Second Boer War was the first of the modern era. They will site the use of magazine rifles, the machine gun and trenches. Unfortunately that is not quite true. The Spanish American War of 1898 precedes the events of the Boer War by more than a year. Trench warfare in some form has been around since man started beating each other with stones. The machine gun can be debated as far back as the American Civil War depending on your definition. Dr. Gatling was making a machine to make war so terrible we would stop (like that’s going to work!). One turn of the crank handle would send multiple rounds downrange from a number of the Gatling Gun’s multiple barrels. One can say it was a machine gun. However, the common definition requires a single pull of the trigger to send multiple rounds down range from…

Eight million men in total fought in the British Army during the First World War. More than half of them (5 million) served in France and Flanders on the Western Front. [1] These men came from the U.K. as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and even the West Indies. Another 8 million soldiers fought for France. [2] The United States sent 4.7 million to war with Germany in the last two years of the war [3] and as many as 11 million Germans fought in France and Belgium as well between 1914 and 1918. [4] Interestingly enough these weren’t the only nations’ armies to have taken part in the fighting there. There were other, smaller, often overlooked contingents to the Western Front that history has largely forgotten. Here are their stories.

PortugalWhen war between the powers of Europe erupted in the summer of 1914, Portugal…